Unicel from at&t?

[sesro1978]

Hi-

I'm a current at&t customer in and around the Wilder, VT area. I'm thinking of switching to Unicel as they have stores and support locally- is this worth the switch based on signal strength and customer support?

What are the opinions out there of Unicel's service and support?

Thanks,
Seth

[RadioFoneGuy]

Might want to hold on alittle bit.

Verizon is in the process of buying Unicel. Once Verizon owns Unicel it is giving several of its VT area to ATT anyways so in a few month after going to Unicel you would be back to ATT.

This means in those area all the towers and networks assets will be owned by ATT.

[Bill Clinton]

Right now Unicel has the best coverage in Vermont. If you have AT&T you are already roaming on Unicel in all of Vermont assuming that you have roaming included in your plan. All of AT&T's coverage in Vermont is provides by roaming on Unicel because AT&T doesn't have any native coverage in Vermont.

As RadioFoneGuy said, Unicel is in the process of being bought out by Verizon. In the Northeast Unicel and Verizon use incompatible technologies so if you switched to Unicel you will probably get adopted by Verizon in a year and given a new phone, or they will have to give AT&T pieces of the old Unicel network, and customers in those areas will be pushed over to AT&T if AT&T wants to provide coverage in Vermont.

Unicel is a small provider and in order to compete with the larger carriers they have to provide good coverage which explains their commitment to Vermont. I wouldn't discourage switching to Unicel, they are a great carrier, you should just keep in mind that you will probably be migrated to Verizon or back to AT&T in the next 2 years.

[dmarkson]

Wilder is actually a native AT&T coverage area, although you likely will have no local phone number - you may be stuck with a NH number.

The Unicel system covering Wilder will become AT&T, although the Unicel system over the border in NH will become Verizon.

Bottom line is that you can keep AT&T or switch to Unicel.

As has been mentioned, Unicel has had better coverage in NVT that Verizon. However, watching the Verizon maps, Verizon is getting better.

One caveat, if you want 3g coverage, Verizon is the only choice, and it will likely remain that way for some time.